I finally put the tortoises outside for the day today – if it had just been Edweena, it would have happened some time ago, but I’ve been feeling protective of the little tots. However, being outdoors is certainly better and more enjoyable for them. I have plans for their long-term housing, but have not quite got it set up yet, so it’s been a temporary arrangement. I went out sometime around 4 o’clock to check on them and found Edweena half-buried and asleep, one of the babies snuggled under a piece of bark I’d put in for them and the other heading that way. So I took them back indoors and will put them out again in the morning.
Zerlina and I have been busy – she helped a lot with the tortoises, she’s done painting, we’ve been out and about – she was intrigued to see the self-service system at the dairy farm, where you take your own bottle to get milk from the dispenser. Meanwhile, Weeza has scrubbed and cleaned their house and applied long-acting pesticide. They still have no idea how the infestation happened and can only think that a small friend on a sleepover brought the creatures in with the overnight bag, unlikely as this sounds. At least it wasn’t bedbugs.
After all the strenuous gardening and lawnmowing, preceded by a day walking and standing in London, followed by one doing much the same in Norwich, my left hip is in worse condition than it’s ever been. I’ve found it difficult, sometimes, to do ordinary activities such as picking things up from the floor, climbing between strands of a wire fence and sitting on a low chair. I trust it will improve over the next few days, but have to accept that it’s a turning point. On the other hand, I still feel so lucky that it’s a worn body part that can be cut out and replaced and, in the interim, will give a degree of disability but no actual illness.
The fleas arriving in an overnight bag may not be so far-fetched. 14 years ago, I was living on my own in rented accommodation with not pets, and no pets before me. The two girls living in the flat upstairs got puppies and brought them downstairs to show me (outside in our shared garden). I managed to pick up fleas from the puppies and infested my flat. But even worse (although thankfully everyone saw the funny side of it), I also managed to transfer the fleas to work and the whole office had to treated with insecticide.
It might be a flea year… maybe due to the mild winter… as soon as the sun comes out they boom. I remember 1990 as being a bad year for fleas.. I moved into a flat with an infestation… after a day I looked like I had acne of the ankles.
Sx
I’ve lived with animals all my life and most of the time they haven’t ben treated for fleas, that’s a recent thing. I’ve never known this sort of problem before. But Weeza has blasted the entire house, so it shouldn’t happen again. Not this year, anyway!
In the summer of 1990 , the year Scarlet mentions, we had an infestation of cat fleas (we had three cats then). At that time the local council simply sent round the pest exterminator (at no charge), and he did the trick. If you notify the council now, I’m told, they give you the number of a private firm of pest exterminators. We seem to get precious little in return for our rates now.